Here’s what the images that just won the Nobel prize in chemistry look like and why they’re so transformative

Over the last few years, researchers have published atomic structures of numerous complicated protein complexes. a. A protein complex that governs the circadian rhythm. b. A sensor of the type that reads pressure changes in the ear and allows us to hear. c. The Zika virus.

“for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution”

Cool microscope technology revolutionises biochemistry

We may soon have detailed images of life’s complex machineries in atomic resolution. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017 is awarded to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson for the development of cryo-electron microscopy, which both simplifies and improves the imaging of biomolecules. This method has moved biochemistry into a new era.

A picture is a key to understanding. Scientific breakthroughs often build upon the successful visualisation of objects invisible to the human eye. However, biochemical maps have long been filled with blank spaces because the available technology has had difficulty generating images of much of life’s molecular machinery. Cryo-electron microscopy changes all of this. Researchers can now freeze biomolecules mid-movement and visualise processes they have never previously seen, which is decisive for both the basic understanding of life’s chemistry and for the development of pharmaceuticals.

Electron microscopes were long believed to only be suitable for imaging dead matter, because the powerful electron beam destroys biological material. But in 1990, Richard Henderson succeeded in using an electron microscope to generate a three-dimensional image of a protein at atomic resolution. This breakthrough proved the technology’s potential.

Joachim Frank made the technology generally applicable. Between 1975 and 1986 he developed an image processing method in which the electron microscope’s fuzzy twodimensional images are analysed and merged to reveal a sharp three-dimensional structure.

Jacques Dubochet added water to electron microscopy. Liquid water evaporates in the electron microscope’s vacuum, which makes the biomolecules collapse. In the early 1980s, Dubochet succeeded in vitrifying water – he cooled water so rapidly that it solidified in its liquid form around a biological sample, allowing the biomolecules to retain their natural shape even in a vacuum.

Following these discoveries, the electron microscope’s every nut and bolt have been optimised. The desired atomic resolution was reached in 2013, and researchers can now routinely produce three-dimensional structures of biomolecules. In the past few years, scientific literature has been filled with images of everything from proteins that cause antibiotic resistance, to the surface of the Zika virus. Biochemistry is now facing an explosive development and is all set for an exciting future.

2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Jeffrey C. Hall (ex-Brandeis, University of Maine), Michael Rosbash (Brandeis University) and Michael W. Young (Rockefeller University in New York) for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm

Jeffrey C. Hall was born 1945 in New York, USA. He received his doctoral degree in 1971 at the University of Washington in Seattle and was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena from 1971 to 1973. He joined the faculty at Brandeis University in Waltham in 1974. In 2002, he became associated with University of Maine.

Michael Rosbash was born in 1944 in Kansas City, USA. He received his doctoral degree in 1970 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. During the following three years, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Since 1974, he has been on faculty at Brandeis University in Waltham, USA.

Michael W. Young was born in 1949 in Miami, USA. He received his doctoral degree at the University of Texas in Austin in 1975. Between 1975 and 1977, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in Palo Alto. From 1978, he has been on faculty at the Rockefeller University in New York.

Keeping time on our human physiology

The biological clock is involved in many aspects of our complex physiology. We now know that all multicellular organisms, including humans, utilize a similar mechanism to control circadian rhythms. A large proportion of our genes are regulated by the biological clock and, consequently, a carefully calibrated circadian rhythm adapts our physiology to the different phases of the day (Figure 3). Since the seminal discoveries by the three laureates, circadian biology has developed into a vast and highly dynamic research field, with implications for our health and wellbeing.

Other Related Research

Mammalian Circadian Clocks

Circadian clocks are molecular oscillators with ~24-hour periods that drive daily biological rhythms. Such clocks are found in all of the major branches of life, and they likely represent ancient timekeeping systems important for predicting daily environmental cycles on our rotating planet. In mammals, circadian clocks are present in most if not all cells. These distributed clocks control a myriad of processes, in aggregate creating coherent 24-hour programs of physiology and behavior.

A picture of how circadian clocks are built has emerged in the last two decades. The core mechanism is a transcriptional feedback loop, wherein the protein products of several clock genes build the molecular machinery to inhibit the transcription factor responsible for their own production. The molecular components of circadian clocks are conserved from insects to humans.

The Weitz lab uses molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, and structural biology to investigate the mammalian circadian clock. The focus of our efforts at present is to understand the circadian clock in terms of the integrated functions of its several multi-protein machines. This effort is principally based on the purification of endogenous circadian clock protein complexes from mouse tissues and their biochemical analysis and structural study by cryo-electron microscopy.

Fig. 1. Class-average electron microscopy images of the mouse nuclear PER complex, a core circadian clock machine. It is a 1.9-MDa assembly of about thirty proteins that appears as a quasi-spherical, beaded particle of 40-nm diameter. Our current work provides an initial low-resolution view of the structural organization of endogenous clock machinery from a eukaryote. We aim to obtain high-resolution structures.

Banquet speech by Bob Dylan given by the United States Ambassador to Sweden Azita Raji, at the Nobel Banquet, 10 December 2016.

But, like Shakespeare, I too am often occupied with the pursuit of my creative endeavors and dealing with all aspects of life’s mundane matters. “Who are the best musicians for these songs?” “Am I recording in the right studio?” “Is this song in the right key?” Some things never change, even in 400 years.

Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, “Are my songs literature?”

So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer.

In 1964, I was in the 9th grade in High School in Haifa, Israel, our very gifted English teacher, brought to class Bob Dylan and explained in class how important it is to expose high school students to his very creative poetic expressions and lyrics which had an influence on her as a Literature Critique.

Our English teacher, Tamara has immigrated to Israel from the UK. Tamara Sachs, who Chaired the Committee for CurriculumDevelopmentfor the English Language Arts Subject Matter at Ministry of Education in Israel, was also the Editor of the Textbook used for English Subject matter in Israeli high Schools for the 9th and 10th grades. She created Textbooks that had Contemporary Literature contents beside the Classic English Text taught in high School in Israel and part of the National Standardized Matriculation Exam at the end of the 12th grade.

I enjoyed Bob Dylan songs ever since, 1964 to Present.

I took my family to attend his performance in the Berkshires, MA on JUL2 2016 SATURDAY, 7:00 PM

Tanglewood welcomes Bob Dylan with special guest Mavis Staples to the Koussevitzky Music Shed on Saturday, July 2 at 7 p.m. Legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has performed twice at Tanglewood first in 1991 and again during the 1997 season. Gates open at 4PM.

Bob Dylan Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature

The singer and songwriter Bob Dylan, one of the world’s most influential musicians, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” in the words of the Swedish Academy.

He is the first American to win the prize since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, was a surprise: Although Mr. Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognized.

“Mr. Dylan’s work remains utterly lacking in conventionality, moral sleight of hand, pop pabulum or sops to his audience,” Bill Wyman, a journalist, wrote in a 2013 Op-Ed essay in The New York Times arguing for Mr. Dylan to get the award. “His lyricism is exquisite; his concerns and subjects are demonstrably timeless; and few poets of any era have seen their work bear more influence.”

Carl Gornitzki and colleagues examine how far medical scientists are under his spell

In September 2014 it emerged that a group of scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden had been sneaking the lyrics of Bob Dylan into their papers as part of a long running bet. The story, originally published in the house magazine KI-Bladet, quickly went viral—spreading from the local Swedish press to international media such as theGuardian and Washington Post.12 It all started in 1997 with a review in Nature Medicine entitled “Nitric oxide and inflammation: the answer is blowing in the wind.”3 A local phenomenon was thus revealed, but was this Dylan citing unique to the Karolinska Institute? We decided to investigate how Dylan’s lyrics are cited in the biomedical literature.

Knockin’ on pollen’s door

We used a list of all Dylan’s song and album titles downloaded from bobdylan.com to do a search using Medline in May 2015. In addition, we searched for truncated versions of a selection of the most popular Dylan songs to find modified titles,4 such as “Knockin’ on pollen’s door: live cell …

Citing Dylan. Bob Dylan has won this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. In 2015, inspired by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden who had been sneaking Dylan lyrics into their papers, a team writing in the BMJ reported that Dylan citations were “uncommon before 1990 but [have] increased exponentially since then”. They note: “Some journals have more Dylan citing articles than others; for instance, we found six articles citing Dylan songs in Nature.”

Who are the winners?

Dr. Sauvage, 71, was born in Paris and received his Ph.D. in 1971 from the University of Strasbourg in France, where he is a professor emeritus. He is also director of research emeritus at the National Center for Scientific Research in France.

Dr. Stoddart, 74, was born in Edinburgh, received his Ph.D. in 1966 from Edinburgh University, and is a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. He previously taught at U.C.L.A. and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to science.

Dr. Feringa, 64, was born in Barger-Compascuum, the Netherlands, and received his Ph.D. in 1978 from the University of Groningen, where he is a professor of organic chemistry.

Molecular machines, the world’s smallest mechanical devices, may eventually be used to create new materials, sensors and energy storage systems, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in announcing the prize.

“In terms of development, the molecular motor is at the same stage as the electric motor was in the 1830s, when scientists displayed various spinning cranks and wheels, unaware that they would lead to electric trains, washing machines, fans and food processors,” the academy said.

The three scientists — Jean-Pierre Sauvage, J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa — will share equally in the prize of 8 million Swedish kronor, or about $930,000.

Why did they win?

Nanotechnology — the creation of structures on the scale of a nanometer, or a billionth of a meter — has been a field of fruitful research for a couple of decades. Now, scientists are learning how to construct tiny moving machines about one-thousandth the width of a strand of human hair.

Why is the work important?

The three men invigorated the field of topological chemistry, the academy said on Wednesday. They were pioneers in the second wave of nanotechnology, a field that the physicist Richard P. Feynman, also a Nobel laureate, foresaw as early as 1959. He gave a seminal lecture in 1984, toward the end of his life, on design and engineering at the molecular scale.

In living organisms, nature has produced a slew of molecular machines that ferry materials around cells, construct proteins and divide cells. Artificial molecular machines are still primitive by comparison, but scientists can already envision applications in the future.

“Think about nanomachines, microrobots,” said Dr. Feringa, who spoke by telephone with journalists assembled in Stockholm at the prize announcement. “Think about tiny robots that the doctor in the future will inject in your blood veins, and they go search for cancer cells or going to deliver drugs, for instance.”

The technology could also lead to the creation of “smart materials” that change properties based on external signals, Dr. Feringa said.

2016 Nobel Prize in Physics for their research into the bizarre properties of matter in extreme states, the winners: David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz

3 Who Studied Unusual States of Matter Win 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics

David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz shared the Nobel Prize in Physics last Tuesday for their research into the bizarre properties of matter in extreme states.

Who are the winners?

Dr. Thouless, 82, was born in Bearsden, Scotland, was an undergraduate at Cambridge University and received a Ph.D. in 1958 from Cornell. From 1965 to 1978, he taught mathematical physics at the University of Birmingham in England, where he collaborated with Dr. Kosterlitz. In 1980, he joined the University of Washington in Seattle, where he is now an emeritus professor.

Dr. Haldane, 65, was born in London. He received his Ph.D. from Cambridge, where he was also an undergraduate, in 1978. He worked at the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France; the University of Southern California; Bell Laboratories; and the University of California, San Diego, before joining the Princeton faculty in 1990.

Dr. Kosterlitz, 73, was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and received his doctorate in high-energy physics from Oxford University in 1969. He has worked at the University of Birmingham; the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Turin, Italy; and Cornell, Princeton, Bell Laboratories and Harvard.

The scientists relied on advanced mathematical models to study “theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter,” in the words of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

Their studies may have major applications in electronics, materials science and computing. In an email, Michael S. Turner, a physicist at the University of Chicago, described the work as “truly transformational, with long-term consequences both practical and fundamental.”

Why did they win?

The three laureates sought to understand matter that is so cold or so thin that weird quantum effects overpower the random atomic jostling that dominates ordinary existence. Superconductivity, in which all electrical resistance vanishes in matter, is one example of such an effect.

Dr. Thouless and Dr. Kosterlitz worked together at the University of Birmingham in the 1970s to investigate what happens when two-dimensional films of matter shift from one exotic phase, like superconductivity, to another.

2016 Nobel in Economics for Work on The Theory of Contracts to winners: Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom

Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom Win 2016 Nobel in Economics for Work on Contracts

About the Winners

Dr. Holmstrom, 67, was born in Helsinki, Finland, and speaks Swedish well enough to answer questions in that language at Monday’s news conference.

In the early 1970s, he was working for a Finnish company that wanted to use computers to improve productivity. Dr. Holmstrom, sent to Stanford on a one-year fellowship, concluded that the real challenge was not programming but providing employees with proper incentives.

He stayed to earn a Ph.D., and has been an professor at M.I.T. since 1994.

“He will not let go until he’s understood what you have to say,” Dr. Bolton said. “And most of the time, your argument fails. Which is an unpleasant experience as a student. But when you succeed, it gives you an incredible confidence.”

Why They Won

Dr. Holmstrom’s work has focused on employment contracts. Companies would like managers to behave as if they owned the place: working hard and minding costs while taking smart risks. Employees, on the other hand, would like to be paid as much as possible while working no harder than necessary. And performance is difficult to assess.

Economists since Adam Smith have grappled with the conflicts inherent in the relationship between owners and employees. Dr. Holmstrom’s work, beginning in the late 1970s, presented evidence that companies should tie pay to the broadest possible evaluation of an employee’s performance. In later work, he focused on the benefits of simple contracts that mixed base pay with limited incentives.

Dr. Hart’s work begins from the observation that contracts are incomplete instruction manuals. They cannot specify what to do in every case. Instead, they must stipulate how decisions should be made.

“His research provides us with theoretical tools for studying questions such as which kinds of companies should merge, the proper mix of debt and equity financing, and which institutions such as schools or prisons ought to be privately or publicly owned,”the academy said in a summary of his work.

Dr. Holmstrom, speaking via an audio connection to a news conference hosted by the academy, said he had been “very surprised and very happy” to get the news. Asked how his day was going, he said there was “a sense of things being surreal.”

Dr. Hart said he had hugged his wife, roused his son from sleep and spoken by phone with Dr. Holmstrom, a close friend whom he has known for years.

“I woke at about 4:40 and was wondering whether it was getting too late for it to be this year, but then fortunately the phone rang,” Dr. Hart said.

Why the Work Is Important

One implication of Dr. Holmstrom’s work is that it makes sense to withhold some compensation for a time, to evaluate the results of a manager’s work.

Companies have turned increasingly to this kind of deferred compensation, particularly for senior executives.

But his influence on compensation practices is limited. He has argued, for example, that companies should tie such evaluations to the stock market performance of their industry rather than focusing solely on the company’s own stock price. It makes little sense to reward an executive for gains that reflect a broader change in the industry’s fortunes, or to punish executives for setbacks beyond their control. But such advice has not become common practice.

Ohsumi‘s discoveries helped reveal the mechanism and significance of a fundamental physiological process, biologist Maria Masucci of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden said in a news briefing October 3. “There is growing hope that this knowledge will lead to the development of new strategies for the treatment of many human diseases.”

Scientists got their first glimpse of autophagy in the 1960s, not long after the discovery of the lysosome, a pouch within cells that acts as a garbage disposal, grinding fats and proteins and sugars into their basic building blocks. (That discovery won Belgian scientist Christian de Duve a share of the Nobel Prize in 1974.) Researchers had observed lysosomes stuffed with big chunks of cellular material — like the bulk waste of the cellular world — as well as another, mysterious pouch that carried the waste to the lysosome.